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Decennio Rosso
The Decennio Rosso (English: "Red Decade") was a roughly ten-year period, between 1919 and 1929, of intense social conflict in Italy, following the Great War. The Decennio Rosso is considered to have ended with the implementation of martial law and the ascension of the Governo Militare in 1929, but unrest continues to this day. Background The Decennio Rosso took place in a context of economic crisis at the end of the war, with high unemployment and political instability. It was characterized by mass strikes, worker manifestations as well as self-management experiments through land and factories occupations. Tension had been rising since the final years of the war. By the end of 1918, Italy was seriously on the brink of revolution. The population was confronted with rising inflation and a significant increase in the price of basic goods, in a period that extensive unemployment was aggravated by mass demobilization of the Royal Italian Army at the end of the war. Association to the trade unions, the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), and the anarchist movement increased substantially. The PSI increased its membership to 250,000, and the major Socialist trade union, the General Confederation of Labour (Confederazione Generale del Lavoro, CGL), reached two million members, while the anarchist Italian Syndicalist Union (Unione Sindacale Italiana, USI) reached between 300,000 and 500,000 affiliates. The vigour of the anarchists was boosted by the return from exile of the anarchist leader Errico Malatesta. Events 1919-1920: Initial unrest In Turin and Milan, factory councils – which the leading Italian Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci considered to be the Italian equivalent of Russia’s soviets – were formed and many factory occupations took place under the leadership of revolutionary socialists and anarcho-syndicalists. The agitations also extended to the agricultural areas of the Padan plain and were accompanied by peasant strikes, rural unrests and armed conflicts between left-wing and right-wing militias. Industrial action and rural unrest increased significantly: there were 1,663 industrial strikes in 1919, compared to 810 in 1913. More than one million industrial workers were involved in 1919, three times the 1913 figure. The trend continued in 1920, which saw 1,881 industrial strikes. Rural strikes also increased substantially, from 97 in 1913 to 189 by 1920, with over a million peasants taking action. On July 20-21, 1919, a general strike was called in solidarity with the Russian Revolution. In April 1920, Turin metal-workers, in particular at the Fiat plants, went on strike demanding recognition for their 'factory councils', a demand the PSI and CGL did not support. The 'factory councils' more and more saw themselves as the models for a new democratically controlled economy running industrial plants, instead of as a bargaining tool with employers. Armed metal workers in Milan and Turin occupied their factories in response to a lockout by the employers. Factory occupations swept the "industrial triangle" of north-western Italy. Some 400,000 metal-workers and 100,000 others took part in the summer of 1920. On September 3, 185 metal-working factories in Turin had been occupied. 1921: Foundation of the PCd'I and elections The PSI and CGL initially failed to see the revolutionary potential of the movement; had it been maximized and expanded to the rest of Italy immediately, a revolutionary transformation might have been possible. Most Socialist leaders were pleased with the struggles in the North, but did little to capitalize on the impact of the occupations and uprisings. This changed in January 1921 when the PSI expelled its reformist elements and renamed itself to the Communist Party of Italy (PCd'I). Although it received less votes and seats in the 1921 election than the PSI did in the previous 1919 election, it emerged as the largest party in parliament, though liberal and right-wing parties formed the government. Its support increased following the election as the PSI support base gradually transitioned to the new party. The PCd'I quickly spread its influence to socialist trade unions, political organizations and militant groups. However, internal disagreements between its various factions limited its potential to wage a revolution. 1922-1923: March on Rome and banning of the PNF Main article: March on Rome The fascist movement under the National Fascist Party (PNF) emerged as a major extra-governmental opposition force to the socialist revolutionary movement after its foundation in 1921. It had benefited from its electoral participation in a coalition of right-wing parties known as the National Blocs. Fascists under the preceding Italian Fasci of Combat (FIC) and other nationalist organizations had previously engaged in open combat with leftist agitators throughout late-1919, 1920 and early-1921. The fascists were backed by many Great War veterans, though a number of veterans also sympathized with the left-wing movements and joined the militant group Arditi del Popolo. By 1922, the Blackshirts (Italian: Camicie Nere), the paramilitary of the PNF, had grown to as much as 200,000 members, though only around a 1/4th of them were active. Throughout early and mid-1922, fascist militants attempted to occupy various key cities across Italy. Initially, they portrayed these efforts as an attempt to quell leftist militant unrest in the absence of the government. However, this was, in reality, part of preparations for a coup attempt that would take place in late-October 1922, which became known as the March on Rome. While these efforts succeeded in many locations, leftist militias put up significant resistance in a number of locations, with the most infamous instance being in Parma. In what would become known as the Defense of Parma, outnumbered anti-fascists led by the Arditi del Popolo drove the Blackshirts out of the city, dealing significant casualties to the formations at little loss of their own. The city was later besieged by the military along with dozens of other cities, including Rome, the capital of Italy.Category:Conflicts